Charred RLTV studio building and car
Kinshasa, September 6, 2011
Photo: John Bompengo/Radio Okapi
Yesterday, UDPS members accompanying the motorcade of Tshisekedi after his appearance at CENI headquarters, ransacked a PPRD “inter-federal” office on Sendwe Boulevard, in Kalamu Commune (near Limete, where the UDPS leader resides), after a verbal confrontation with the police guarding the building. UDPS members also burned seven vehicles nearby, including one belonging to the head of the PPRD office.
In retaliation, unknown arsonists (believed to be PPRD sympathizers) torched the RLTV studio building belonging to MP Roger Lumbala, chairman of RCD/National (a splinter group of Ruberwa’s RCD) and 2006 presidential candidate, who belongs to the opposition Fatima Group that backs Tshisekedi for president. [Update: As written on the facade of the TV studio building, while keeping the same acronym his party had after splitting from Ruberwa's RCD during Congo's World War, Lumbala has cleverly transformed it to stand for: "Rassemblement des Congolais Démocrates et Nationalistes.] The Limete UDPS headquarters has also been burned.
In an unrelated development, UDPS senior leaders had announced earlier that their planned demo on Thursday, September 8, will take place as scheduled, despite Tshisekedi’s filing to run for president.
This would spark further violence as the government, through its spokesperson, Communication and Media Minister Lambert Mende, has warned that “CENI building and its immediate surroundings are, by virtue of laws, neutral zones. Consequently, demonstrations intending to exert upon the organizing power of the electoral process physical pressure of any kind are proscribed by the laws of the country.”
Inside RLTV studio
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